The shell gets the execution status

of a command after it has been executed. The execution status, also known as the exit status, is a numerical value that indicates whether the command was successful or not.

In most shells, an exit status of 0 indicates that the command executed successfully, while a non-zero exit status indicates an error or failure of some kind. The specific values and their meanings may vary between different commands and shells, but generally, a non-zero exit status indicates the type of error that occurred.

The shell can access the exit status of the last executed command through a special variable called "$?". This variable holds the exit status value, and it can be used in shell scripts or in interactive shell sessions.

For example, if we execute a command and want to check its exit status, we can use the following command:

$ command
$ echo $?

The value printed by the echo $? command will be the exit status of the previously executed command.

The shell can use the exit status to make decisions or perform actions based on whether a command succeeded or failed. This allows for error handling and control flow in shell scripts